


Family

by mexicantt



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Advent Calendar, F/M, Fluff, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:25:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mexicantt/pseuds/mexicantt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holidays, her mother used to say, are a time for family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family

Holidays, her mother used to say, are a time for family.

 

…

 

Hermione Granger was the only child of only children whose parents had birthed her as late in life as their parents before them, which left her with no other family aside from her mother and father by the age of nine. After her last grandparent passed away, the holidays were still a time for family, but they changed from the traditional Christmas morning at her Nan’s house outside of Derby to doing something new and exciting as a family each Christmas holiday. Being two of three primary dentists in private practice dentistry, the Granger family was rather well off, and Hermione began to explore the world at Christmastime with her parents. With the exception of a few Christmases spent at Hogwarts, Hermione honoured her mother’s holiday wishes, and had seen holiday celebrations in places like New York City, Paris, and Madrid. She and her parents had learned to Hula on the beaches of Maui, been taught Irish step dancing, and sheared sheep in New Zealand. For Hermione, the Christmas hols became a time to spend learning and growing with her mother and father.

 

…

 

More than a decade had passed since the final battle that found Harry Potter victorious over Tom Riddle amidst the ruins of what was once a rather magnificent building. The war took a great many things from everyone involved, and you would have been hard-pressed to find a single soul left untouched by the aftermath. Hermione had been no exception.

 

She’d had plans to retrieve her parents, to return their memories to them after the war was over and it was safer to do so, but she had failed to take something into consideration after she Obliviated her mum and dad; she had forgotten that it takes time to close up a house and ready it for a long-term vacancy. She had forgotten that it would take some time before her parents would want to shut down their practice, in order to find each and every patient a new dentist that fit his or her needs. And she, the so-called _brightest witch of her age_ , forgot that it is important to see your plans through to the end before moving on to the next one.

 

…

 

By the time Hermione had finished helping with the rebuilding of Hogwarts, it was mid-August. Scores of witches, wizards, and house-elves had assisted in the endeavour, labouring pretty much non-stop for the four month following the so-called _Battle of Hogwarts_ to ready the school for the new school year and the flood of students who would be attending. Having a little more than two weeks before classes started on September 1 st, she went back to her childhood home to retrieve her school trunk and other school paraphernalia she had hidden away in the attic under a disillusionment charm. What she found was devastating; walls had been torn down, furniture destroyed, and she could still see what she suspected to be dried blood on the walls of her parents’ bathroom. She even found tufts of orange fur scattered throughout her parents’ bedroom, as though Crookshanks had fought to defend them. The Death Eaters had obviously found her parents before they left for Australia, and Hermione was left to be just another orphan made by the terrible war that had raged in the Wizarding World.

 

…

 

That first Christmas after the war was spent once more at Hogwarts, where the small handful of students returning to retake their seventh year of education had managed to band together regardless of house affiliation. It was bittersweet to be there by herself, without Harry and Ron, but with her short-lived romance with Ron having fizzled out by the end of May and Harry and Ginny being back together, Hermione felt she could no longer count the Weasleys as her family. The war left many more orphans than people had realized at first, and Hogwarts was a lively place over the winter holidays. However, the only other seventh-year student who had stayed behind was Draco Malfoy, and Hermione found herself finally learning how to play chess that Christmas, with Malfoy as her opponent.

 

Life continued on, and before she knew it, Hermione had sat the N.E.W.T.s and left Hogwarts for the last time on the scarlet Hogwarts Express. An empty compartment was hard to come by, so she had chosen the next best thing and shared one with Malfoy. Even though the small seventh-year class had managed to get along, most of the students were not comfortable being around the former Death Eater for extended periods of time. She and Draco played a game of chess or two, but mostly, they spent the ride back to London in a surprisingly comfortable silence.

 

Once the train reached the station, the two of them gathered their things and stepped off the train together, neither of them expecting meet anyone at the wizarding platform. When Hermione began to say goodbye to him, her words caught in her throat as she saw the Weasley family and Harry greeting Ginny a few metres away. Draco turned his head to see what had stopped Hermione from speaking and looked about to speak when Hermione interrupted and asked him to go with her for a cuppa before going home. To her surprise, he accepted, and they made their way into Muggle London together.

 

…

 

The Christmas of 1999 was the first Christmas that Hermione Granger spent alone. Her tentative friendship with Draco Malfoy had continued over the previous six months, and he had offered to have her visit himself and his mother at their manor in Wiltshire, but was understanding when she turned the invitation down. Instead, Hermione reminded herself that she was a Granger, and that even if her family was gone, she could continue her Mother’s tradition of learning something new. She spent the three weeks leading up to Christmas taking cooking lessons, sending baskets of baked goods to her friends that year on Christmas day, with promises to Harry and Ron that she would have them ‘round at hers soon for a proper meal to make up for all of those awful tins of mushrooms during their year on the run.

 

…

 

Over the next several years, Hermione spent her holidays going to new places and learning to do new things. She broke down and bought herself a new cat – another half-kneazle – one year, and the next left him in Draco’s care while she went to Argentina to learn to tango. Another year she bought herself a spinning wheel and learned to create her own yarn, causing Ron and Harry to crack several jokes about becoming an old spinster with naught but cats and knitted doilies to keep her company. She took up archery, learned to ride a horse, and even combined the two one holiday season. Draco finally managed to get her to step foot in his manor, where she formally met Narcissa Malfoy for the first time and learned that family was just as important to the Malfoy family as it had been to the Grangers.

 

Harry and Ginny were married a few years after the war, and Ron had moved on from Hermione to become the consummate bachelor of their friends. Hermione found herself spending more and more time with Draco, getting to know his mother, and even accompanying him once for a very memorable trip to his father in Azkaban prison. While she would spend her Christmases focused on whatever new thing she was learning, or in whatever new place she was visiting, Hermione found herself inevitably in Wiltshire for Boxing Day, sharing what was left of the holidays with the remnants of the Malfoy family.

 

In 2010, Draco asked Hermione to go on a proper date with him, not just their weekly lunch or the cup of coffee they managed to squeeze in on the weekends. One date led to another, until the two officially became exclusive. That Christmas, Hermione went sky diving.

 

The next year, Draco tried to convince Hermione to come and spend Christmas with him and with his mother at the manor, but she declined once more and promised to see him soon. That year, she spent the entirety or Christmas Day making a scrapbook of all of her memories of her mother and father, finally putting her yuletide solitude to rest. When she went to Malfoy Manor on Boxing Day, Draco proposed.

 

…

 

Holidays, she would tell her children, are a time for family. She would tell them that holidays are a time to spend together, growing and learning and doing new things together. But this year, she would be spending it learning how to skate on the ice of a pond on the grounds of Malfor Manor, with her husband by her side.

**Author's Note:**

> My prompt was "Ice skating" - and this fic took on a life of its own; when I tried to steer it toward the prompt, it told me to sit back and just hold on for the ride. I hope I did it justice anyway.
> 
> It's not quite as fleshed-out as I would have liked, due to not having a whole lot of time to work on the piece, but I hope someone out there likes it. ^_^ And apologies for the lame title; naming things is not my strongest suit.


End file.
